BT ILLUSTRATION: LEE YU HUI, SIMON ANG
"For a region that has the fastest-growing number of high net worth individuals, this has a significant impact on levels of giving and philanthropy. According to the latest Hurun Report Global Rich List, as of 2018 there were 2,694 US dollar billionaires in the world, up by 437 from a year earlier. By far the fastest rate of wealth creation is in Asia," argues Prof Agarwal.
Prof Agarwal believes that"the introduction of inheritance tax would help to incentivise or nudge rich individuals to use their wealth to benefit social causes".Mary Ann Tsao's family's Tsao Foundation provides health services at two centres in Singapore that provide medical care for the aged and and the aged poor.
In the West, where civil society is much more mature and the non-profit sector is well-established and regulated, information on needs and services is more accessible, and there are established non-profit organisations to give to that can deliver impact. Mr Lien says that for one thing, family businesses are more common in the region, and Asian families tend to want to pass their philanthropy on to the next generation. Conversely, Western families may see different generations working independently on different programmes.
"The 2016 Charities Aid Foundation report on Gross Domestic Philanthropy, which reports only on individual giving, showed that countries such as South Korea, Singapore and India are more generous than most continental European countries. Generosity is often a function of the depth of civil society and participation, and the degree to which government crowds out private initiative.
He thinks the comparison between the East and West in philanthropy is flawed:"Different cultures need to do things differently and everyone needs to develop and grow at their own pace. Also, it is hard to get real data as not all philanthropy and community work is publicised.
The first is traditional philanthropy:"While we have a philanthropic arm for which we have defined purposes, the development of an effective strategy and implementation plan has been more challenging than that for our businesses because of the reasons highlighted above.